SPECIALTY CENTER. Iloilo City Lone District Rep. Julienne Baronda (second from left) and Senator Joseph Victor Ejercito (third from left) lead the unveiling of the dedication marker during the inauguration of the Western Visayas Medical Center Heart and Lung building in this city’s Mandurriao district on Friday (April 26, 2024). The center offers a comprehensive range of services for cardiovascular and pulmonary care. (Contributed photo)
ILOILO CITY – Patients seeking treatment for cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases are assured of quality services at par with the Philippine Heart Center (PHC) with the opening of the Western Visayas Medical Center (WVMC) Heart and Lung building on Friday.
“As we inaugurate the cardiovascular and lung care center, we affirm our role as a Regional Apex hospital in the region. By consolidating heart and lung subspecialty services under one roof, we are not only streamlining patient care but also raising the standard of excellence in cardiovascular and pulmonary care,” said heart center head Dr. Mae Dagooc in a media conference.
For cardiovascular care, the center offers a comprehensive range of services, including diagnosis and treatment of heart conditions, interventional cardiology procedures, and cardiothoracic surgeries, while services available for pulmonary care are diagnosis and management of lung diseases; pulmonary function testing, bronchoscopy, and advanced imaging services; and treatment modalities.
The hospital has been conducting open heart surgery with the assistance of the PHC since 2016. Starting in 2020, the WVMC, with its own specialists, has been conducting surgery every Tuesday and Thursday even with limited intensive care units.
From 2021 to 2023, the hospital served 3,878 in-patients, performed 310 cardiovascular surgeries, and 1,462 cardiac catheterization procedures.
“We have patients from Palawan, Mindoro, and Bacolod travel to Iloilo to avail of angioplasty or angiogram,” said Medical Center chief Dr. Joseph Dean L. Nicolo.
He said that the presence of the center is a big help, financially, to patients because they pay less compared to private hospitals, or in some cases, they can avail of the no balance billing under the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation.
Nicolo said that with the presence of three medical schools in Iloilo, the WVMC is well-equipped in terms of human resources.
Iloilo City Lone District Rep. Julienne Baronda pushed for the realization of the center when she was still working with the office of Sen. Joseph Victor Ejercito. She said during her visits in 2015, 2016, and 2017, she saw the sad state of the hospital where other patients had to bring with them their folding beds and stay in hospital hallways to get medical care.
“This is a result of our collaboration and partnership to bring about a better medical facility that is at par with the best hospitals in Iloilo City or the entire Western Visayas. The miserable conditions I witnessed years ago propelled me to push Sen. JV, who was my boss then and chair of the Senate Health Committee at that time, to help improve the biggest public hospital in Panay,” she said in her message.
Thus, the funding support of PHP449 million was secured for Phase 1 of the building.
When elected as House representative, Baronda authored Republic Act 11496, increasing the bed capacity of the hospital from 425 to 700. She also announced her plan to raise the bed capacity to 1,200.
Senator Ejercito said the establishment of specialty centers is aligned with the Universal Health Care.
The statement of President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. during his State of the Nation Address prioritizing the establishment of specialty hospitals has added an extra boost since there is already a PHP10 billion budget for that purpose, he said.
Simultaneous with the inauguration, the hospital also held a groundbreaking for its six-story cancer care center with a PHP300 million fund support under the Health Facility Enhancement Program of the Department of Health.
Health Undersecretary Gloria Balboa said there is a need to decentralize the services of heart, lung, and cancer to regional areas to make them accessible to patients.
“If they go to Manila, there is additional expense. In regional areas, we really plan to at least one per region, so access will be addressed,” she said. (PNA)
